Conservative agenda

From the Supreme Court to the halls of Congress to governor’s mansions across the country, conservatives have ruthlessly pushed an agenda that has torn America asunder since 1980. As 2011 comes to a close, conservatives are still trying to push failed policies. This is a list of 15 individual conservatives that pose a significant threat to American society as we move into 2012 and beyond.

1. John Roberts) The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court leads four other conservative judges on the bench. Placed on the high court by President Bush, John Roberts has been influential in changing campaign finance laws (Citizens United) and has since ruled in favor of big corporations. And the conservative court isn’t through yet. Conservatives desire to overturn abortion, environmental laws, President Obama’s health care law, and voting rights laws, and you can bet that they are aiming to use the Supreme Court to do it.

2. Eric Cantor) The House Majority Leader has been very busy since his party took over the House in 2010. Cantor has proven that he has more power than John Boehner does, hence the fact that Boehner isn’t even on the list. Cantor is willing to do whatever it takes to slam every right-wing bill through Congress. He also has the backing of Tea Party House members. Cantor is still young, which means he could be a major player on the right for decades to come. It’s also likely that he could be the next Speaker of the House if the GOP keeps control after the 2012 Election.

3. Clarence Thomas) The second Supreme Court Justice to make the list has deep ties to the conservative movement. He has ties to Koch Industries and has received money from the Heritage Foundation and other conservative organizations. He has refused to recuse himself from cases that he has ties to and that is what makes him dangerous. Thomas ruled with the other conservatives in Citizens United even though he had a conflict of interest in that case as well. As long as he is on the bench with Roberts, outside influences can dictate how the conservative wing rules.

4. Mitch McConnell) He may be the Senate Minority Leader but that doesn’t make McConnell any less poisonous to America. He has led the effort to block and stall many important pieces of legislation in the Senate and has blocked Presidential nominees from taking their posts, leaving many departments leaderless. We’ll see more of the same thing in 2012.

5. Paul Ryan) The second member of the U.S. House of Representatives to make the list, Ryan is a major threat because he introduced legislation that would kill Medicare by privatizing it. Essentially, Ryan’s plan throws all American senior citizens under a speeding bus. Ryan isn’t an old man either. He could remain active in politics for decades, which means his ideas will still be around as well. Even if the people of Wisconsin don’t re-elect him to Congress, Ryan could still join any conservative think tank or organization, or become a lobbyist. They would love to have him too. Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare are in danger as long as Ryan is around.

6. Scott Walker) The first of two governors on the list has been busy since he took office. The Governor of Wisconsin is on this list because he is an example of just how involved the Koch brothers are in shaping public policy. Under Walker’s “leadership” he has severely weakened labor unions and worker’s rights, weakened environmental laws, weakened pubic education, weakened voter rights, and has put public lands and facilities up for grabs as a way to increase privatization. Some of these facilities are of deep interest to the Koch brothers. As further evidence that Walker is basically a Koch slave, he took a fake call from a person pretending to be David Koch at the height of the collective bargaining debate. Walker could very well be recalled by the people of Wisconsin but Walker intends to sabotage that effort. Walker’s career in Wisconsin may not last beyond this year, but that doesn’t make him any less of a threat, as governors around the country are following his lead and he could always run for federal office later on.

On its surface, Happy Feet Two is a cutesy sequel about a young penguin who is reluctant to dance. But could there be a radical left-wing agenda lurking below the arctic ice?

Some conservatives think so, The Hollywood Reporterreports, suggesting that the movie’s politics might be a reason why the film has been off to a sluggish start at the box office.

The New York Post’s Kyle Smith called the movie, in a review, “Kiddie Karl Marx.” He writes:

“Happy Feet Two” has a broad, lefty political agenda. It briefly brings up global warming (though, tellingly, only for a minute—Hollywood’s interest in stoking global warming fears seems to have peaked, which is convenient because the public has, after some frightened moments, decisively rejected the alarmist viewpoint) in a scene in which polar bears are shown clinging to shrinking icebergs. It also makes the case, somewhat half-heartedly, for vegetarianism (the penguins see humans roasting chickens, and get spooked). This doesn’t go very far, though, because penguins aren’t vegetarians though I suppose they’re pescetarians. And I’m sure I won’t be the only viewer who thinks that two male krill in the movie (played by Brad Pitt and Matt Damon) have now joined Oscar and Felix and Bert and Ernie as pairs of unusually close confirmed bachelors.

That’s a lot of rhetoric for one movie. While not overtly political,a Christian Movie Review at Movieguide.com writes that the movie promotes “radical environmentalism,” “global warming hysteria” and pro-homosexual and pagan messages.

As the Reporter writes, Happy Feet Two isn’t the first children’s movie to allegedly insert leftist themes into its script. Newsbusters’ Iris Somberg writes that the new Muppets movie conveniently pits a villainous oil tycoon against the muppets.

TPM readers will remember when right-wing bloggers in January freaked out over Batman’s new “Muslim sidekick.” And conservatives last December called for a boycott of the Marvel comic-inspired movie Thor, because Idris Elba — who is excellent, by the way — was playing a norse god in the film. And bizarrely, the Discovery Channel recently passed on a BBC documentary episode focusing on climate change. The channel, which co-produced the series, cited scheduling complications.